Rooney Mara to star with Daniel Craig in 'Dragon Tattoo'

Rooney Mara will be working alongside James Bond star Daniel Craig in the Hollywood remake of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

Sony Pictures announced Monday that Mara will play Lisbeth Salander, a fearless genius tormented by a terrible childhood, in the crime thriller based on the first book in Stieg Larsson's best-selling series.

Mara, 25, joins Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who teams up with Lisbeth to delve into a string of decades-old murders.

"Dragon Tattoo" is directed by David Fincher, who cast Mara in "The Social Network," a drama about the founders of Facebook due in theaters Oct. 1.

The English-language adaptation of "Dragon Tattoo" begins shooting next month in Sweden and is due out Dec. 21, 2011.

The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson has been published in 44 countries and has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide thus far. In the U.S. alone, the series has sold over 10 million copies, and the sales were recently calculated at the remarkable rate of one book per second. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has broken sales records in virtually every country in which it has been published. It has sold over 5 million copies in the U.S. and has out-sold any other e-book in that rapidly expanding market. A literary phenomenon, all three books currently sit atop the New York Times Best Seller lists. In describing the scale of Larsson’s achievement, The Economist said: “Stieg Larsson’s vivid characters, the depth of the detail across the three books, the powerfully imaginative plot, and the sheer verve of the writing make the trilogy a masterpiece of its genre.” Michiko Kakutani, of The New York Times, described the Lisbeth character: “Lisbeth Salander, Stieg Larsson’s fierce pixie of a heroine, is one of the most original characters in a thriller to come along in a while – a gamin, Audrey Hepburn look-alike but with tattoos and piercings, the take-no-prisoners attitude of Lara Croft and the cool, unsentimental intellect of Mr. Spock. She is the vulnerable victim turned vigilante; a willfully antisocial girl . . . who has proved herself to be as incandescently proficient as any video game warrior.” The three novels have all become #1 worldwide bestsellers, an achievement unrivaled in trade book publishing.

Discuss this news here...